I need help Identifying this steel/metal (plenty of pictures!)

[Adam Reese]

Hi everyone,

I got a little time in the shop today and while I was forging I wanted to mess with some "Wrought Iron" I got in a random box of junk at an estate sale. I say it in parentheses because a guy at the sale said it was WI. I have never worked with WI, so I have no idea. I am thinking this may be just plain iron, but I have never worked with that either. I cut off one link and forged it straight and flat, but forgot to try and quench it in water.

Here is what I know.

1. It is magnetic
2. It forges like copper or something. I have never forged steel this soft before. Heck, you can just about bend it with your hands.
3. The sparks take longer to go out than regular steel. You can still see them for a second after they hit the ground.
4. It sands super easy. It literally took about 3 or 4 minutes to get to 800 grit by hand from a 220 belt finish.
5. This chain was definitely made by hand, so I am assuming it's old.

Here are the pictures:

Now for comparison, I did a spark test with a 60 grit ceramic belt on 1084, mild steel flat bar, and this stuff.

1084

Mild steel flat bar

The Mystery

This is the mystery metal spark testing with a 220 grit belt. I didn't know if it would make a difference, so I will add this picture too.

I also sanded it to 800 grit and etched it in Ferric Chloride for about an hour.

Well, any ideas? I want to use some of it for san mai, but I want to find out what it is before I do.

Thanks,
-Adam

 

[Mike Turner]

To test to see if it is wrought iron cut it almost in two with a hacksaw and then bend it like a hinge and hit with a hammer till it breaks. If it is Wrought Iron it will be fibrous at the break if it is mild steel it will shear pretty clean. Do some Google search you should be able to find examples.

My guess just looking at your etched piece it does not show the slag lines so my guess is not Wrought Iron.

 

[Adam Reese]

I broke a piece of this stuff in half and it broke pretty cleanly after some bending. The grain looked like big coarse grain in regular steel, like how the inside of a case hardened file looks when it is broken. It did not look like some of the pictures of broken wrought iron I looked up online. Does this confirm that this stuff is just mild steel?

-Adam

 

[swonut]

My guess would be to heat it up and then quench it in oil. See if it hardens up and from that deduce some type of carbon content. (likely only low carbon steel, or high carbon steel) Without some scientific testing, there's just too many variables over the years to surmise anything other than a very vague generality. You've got a lot of it, so experiment away and see if you can figure out a way to pull the properties you describe out of it. Otherwise, skip ahead a century and call Aldo for a known material. (I'd personally enjoy the challenge of seeing what I can do through trial and error, link by link, but know deep down that by the time I figured it out, I'd be out of links.)

Have fun, experiment, but realize it's not going to be efficient in achieving a specified result. However, you will likely gain some knowledge along the way, so it likely won't be a waste.

Enjoy!

 

[Mike Turner]

Adam I have made plenty of chain and mild steel is what we use to make hand made chain these days if it was 100+ years old they would have used wrought. So I stay with the guess of mild steel but I would also forge a piece down to a flat section and do a quench test.

I would use it for fitting on knives and maybe blue them or give them some other type of finish.

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

It sounds like post-wrought era, low carbon steel from your description and the photo of the sparks. Since you have a good bit of it, you could send a coupon to a lab and have it tested. Then you will know the carbon and alloy content. A lucky thing would be for it to be very low carbon iron.
That would make it good for the soft iron cheeks on san-mai blades. Such steel would weld to the blade steel better than wrought would. A quench test might indicate how low the carbon content is, but a lab test will tell you what it is.

 

[Adam Reese]

Stacy,

Where would I send a piece of this stuff to? How much does it usually cost for something like that? If it is relatively cheap, I will do it just for curiosities sake, if not, I will probably not worry about it.

-Adam

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

There are a few guys on the forum who have that capability. maybe one of them will offer to test a piece,.
Googeling "Metallurgical Testing Laboratories" will give you a good list. Find one near you, or email the ones that seem suitable and ask for a quote. It usually costs about $25-50. Fastenall does it,too.
Here is one I have used in the past that was very reasonable:
Metal Test Inc
1205 5th Ave S
Kent, WA. 98032
Phone 1800 200 1376 (Talk to Blaine)
http://www.metaltest-inc.com/